WRITING FOR THE DOWNTRODDEN IN A DRACONIAN SOCIETY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CHARACTERS IN HABILA’S WAITING FOR AN ANGEL AND IKERIONWU’S HEROES OF CHANGE

Abstract

This scholarship focuses on the plights of the downtrodden in a draconian society. It ispredicated on the fact that there is little or no relative study of the plights of the downtroddencharacters from the points of convergence and divergence in Habila’s Waiting for an Angel(2003) and Ikerionwu’s Heroes of Change (2015). Through a discussion of the role of the(African) writer as a socio-political custodian and moral conscience of the society, the prosetexts were reviewed. Thus the paper utilized the Marxist theoretical approach in the analysis ofthe selected texts, delving into such plights as poverty, unemployment, police brutality,oppression, marginalization and class conflicts. The method of analysis is qualitative. Thepaper concluded that the advent of draconian leadership in the African territory had truncatedthe transformational plans, wishes and aspirations of the masses whose expectations wereendangered by successive repressive regimes, even beyond transition to democratic rule.